mmm, popcorn. (alternate voice) denture disaster, darling! we need poligrip before crispy popcorn. (regular voice) let's fix this. (alternate voice) poligrip power hold + seal gives our strongest hold and 5x food seal. if your mouth could talk, it would ask for... poligrip. right now on ana cabrera reports, we're about to get our hands on a never before seen report by a special grand jury in georgia. what more could it reveal about the election interference case in fulton county and was anyone else not already indicted in that panel sights? president biden landing in india just moments ago for the g-20 summit. how an expected know show from china's leader is adding to his diplomatic tight rope. also ahead, police now confirming eight sightings of an escaped prisoner in pennsylvania. why is he still on the run?

and later, hurricane lee exploding into a rare monster category 5. we're keeping an eye on the latest track. ♪♪ it is 10:00 eastern. happy friday and thanks for being here. i'm ana cabrera reporting from new york. and we have breaking news. at any moment we're expecting the release of the full special grand jury report out of georgia. it's a document that has been sealed for nine months. it's expected to show a full list of people that the special grand jury recommended to indict and that's what we're watching for, whether it could be different from the list of people who were actually indicted in this sprawling election interference case. joining us now is katy fang.

lisa, this is a special grand jury report, the people who took part in this report were not the same people who voted to indict former president trump and the 18 other co-defendants. explain why there were these two separate bodies and why this report is significant. >> let's start with why there are two bodies. georgia law makes a provision for convening a special grand jury for investigative purposes. that grand jury can meet much longer than a typical criminal grand jury which in georgia meets for a period of roughly eight weeks. this grand jury meet over a series of months to consider the evidence that fani willis wanted to put in front of them. at the end of that process, they put together a report that gave fani willis the ability to decide whether she was going to go forward with charging anyone for anything related to her election interference investigation. it's our understanding that this special grand jury report forms the nucleus of the charges that

we have since become familiar with. >> and then she took that report and then takes it to the grand jury, and it's that separate grand jury that takes a look at the evidence again, hears from potentially additional witnesses. i know you've spent a lot of time in georgia since that indictment came down. what will you be looking for in this report? >> i'll be looking for a lot of who was not in that final indictment that came out just a few weeks ago. the one that came from the actual grand jury that voted on the charges. i want to see what evidence exists. there was a different presentation of evidence, but this special grand jury sat for may and june of 2022. in the portions that have been released so far, which has been very limited, let me emphasize, they heard from 75 witnesses that ran the gamut from

civilians to investigators to members of the da's office. and i want to note from what was actually released so far, it's a very kind of limited release that came out in february of this year. basically it accelerates from the very beginning introduction which says, we did not find any evidence of widespread fraud of election fraud that happened in fulton county or in the state of georgia, and then it goes to roman numeral 8, we recommend that perjury be sought because we think people lied. there's a huge expanse of information we don't have. that's what i want to see. what's the part that's been redacted that we haven't had to the information thus far. >> clark cunningham is the chair of law and ethics at georgia university. parts of this report, as katie just mentioned, were unsealed previously. but other portions had been kept secret because da fani willis

was concerned about defendants' rights. is there any risk in unsealing this report now? >> well, the only possible risk might be that there might be witnesses identified in the report who may have their safety at issue. we know that there have been considerable threats made against various people. but the reason that the judge edited the report before releasing it really was to protect the rights of people who were named in the report as recommended for indictment because no decision had been made yet. and particularly, if there's somebody in the report who wasn't indicted, that might injure their reputation somewhat. but the judge said, let me view the report and make my decision about who to indict and who not to indict. so i agree, it's going to be

interesting if there's somebody in the report who wasn't indicted. >> i want to remind people what the special grand jury foreperson told nbc news in february. take a listen. >> it's not a short list. i mean, we saw 75 people, and there are six pages of the report cut out. >> are these recognizable names, names that people would know? >> there are certainty names that you would recognize. >> at the end of the day, we know that the grand jury that took the report, that made the decisions on indictments chose to indict 19 people and apparently there were 30 unindicted co-conspirators according to that indictment. if we see this report and realize that the special grand jury wanted or was recommending an indictment of more people who ultimately weren't, explain why that would be. >> there are a bunch of reasons why that could be, right. to your point, there are 30 unindicted co-conspirators in

the indictment. we know that 13 of them were fake electors and we understand from public reporting that those 13 people have been cooperative with the district attorney's investigation. that's one reason people weren't charged because ultimately when confronted with the possibility of charges, they were cooperators. there are others among those 30 unindicted co-conspirators who we know to have cooperated. robert sinners who was the director of election day operations in georgia is a person who know works for brad raffensperger who was a witness in this investigation. it's been reported that robert sinners who was involved in coalescing the fake electors and making arrangement for them to meet, he also has been a cooperator with this investigation. i expect that a number of those folks weren't indicted because they ultimately decided they were going to cooperate. as for the others, we don't know. there's the possibility that in addition to the fact that there might be people against whom indictments were recommended who

aren't included, we could see people who are in the indictment who are not part of the grand jury's report and i'm looking for that as well. >> we're continuing to keep our eyes on, you know, the court online facility when we're expecting to see when the report drops. i want to talk about what fani willis said yesterday when she unloaded in a letter on jim jordan. he's the chair of the house judiciary committee. he's been trying to investigate this probe and had requested documents from willis. she says, your job description does not include criminal law enforcement nor does it include supervising a specific criminal trial because you believe that doing so will promote your partisan political objectives. she encouraged him to read

georgia's rico statute saying he can buy a copy for just $249. she did not mince words there, hannah. your reaction? >> yeah, fani willis didn't mince words. she also didn't have to send this letter. so i think the fact that she sent this and she said what she said is not only important but especially when it comes to jim jordan. especially when it comes to how he's tried to interfere, not only with this investigation, but the other investigations into donald trump. i'll remind your viewers that in march of this year, jim jordan spent a letter to alvin bragg who indicted donald trump in new york and said, we want your investigative materials. they went to manhattan and held kind of weird political stunt hearing attacking alvin bragg. one of the points that fani willis made that i think is a little wonky but important, she said you have no legislative purpose here. this is something that the january 6th committee had to prove, you have a legislative

purpose for what you're investigating. the fact that the georgia state case is a state case and congress is a federal body should tell you enough. jim jordan has no rights or reason to be there. and i also want to mention that jim jordan was involved in this january 6th plot to overturn the election. the january 6th committee subpoenaed him. we wanted to talk to him. he talked to donald trump multiple times on january 6th. so jim jordan is by no means an actor that doesn't have his own skin in the game here. he's still close to donald trump and i believe he's still doing his bidding. he's talking to him about these investigations and interfering with him. >> he implied that congress has authority here because of federal grant funding that goes to offices like fani willis. but she warns in this letter that if congress were to try to block that money, quote, you will be deciding to allow serial rapists to go unprosecuted and

to cancel programs for at-risk children. she gets to the heart of where that federal funding might go. she's clearly trying to send a message here. hannah, does congress have any kind of oversight role here? >> this is something that the maga republicans in congress have been hammering home this legislative session. defund the doj and defund the fbi. what fani willis does here brilliantly shows what they do. this is a high-profile case that they're focusing on now. it's the former president who tried to overturn the election, but they do a lot of other things, they get a lot of other grant funding that keeps their community safe and i think it's really smart of her to point out where the dallas go and ask jim jordan, is this what you want to be doing with your oversight powers in congress. >> we just got the report, guys. we're starting to go through it. ken dilanian is looking at it,

lisa rubin is looking at it. it's 28 pages long. i want to give people a moment to digest what's in the report. katie, yesterday trump's team notified that he may seek to have the trial moved to federal court where he would ask for his charges to be dismissed. of course, a move to federal court is a tactic several defendants have been pursuing based on the other cases, has that shown any promise legally? >> we're still awaiting a ruling from the federal judge as to mark meadows attempts to remove. a hearing that was taking place two weeks ago lasted for hours. i will say whatever was filed by donald trump yesterday is a legal -- that doesn't really exist, letting the court, i may do something is kind of, you know, saying, maybe i will go pick up the milk on the way

home. the fact that he was notifying the state court judge doesn't mean anything. we do know from trump world, our sources have indicated that trump's waiting to see what happens with mark meadows isn't successful because it's the exact same strategy that mark meadows is trying to deploy. he was serving as an official, and it creates the opportunity to get into federal court but achieve some type of dismissal. so we have two upcoming hearings i want to highlight for your viewers on september 18th, there are two evidentiary hearings and on september 20th, two evidentiary hearings for the four attempts who have attempted to move to federal court so far. it includes jeff clark who was an assistant united states attorney at the time of this complete, you know, fraudulent scheme that they were pursuing. and so we're waiting to get the federal ruling and we expect it hopefully in the next few weeks. >> we just got our hands on this report. i have a copy here.

i'm going to turn to lisa. i know you're just going through it. work with us, folks, and bear with us as we bring it to you as we are reading it ourselves for the first time. i'm seeing names here that weren't obviously part of the indictment. what stands out? >> i mean, two standout to me immediately on pages two and three of this special grand jury report. we see two names that are not in the indictment, one is cleta mitchell who was acting as an attorney to donald trump in connection with that january 2nd call to brad raffensperger. she was his attorney on the call. mark meadows and donald trump were indicted in connection with that call for soliciting brad raffensperger to violate his oath. cleta mitchell is not discussed in the indictment. and also david perdue who famously of lost a runoff on january 5th of 2021 and they

recommended an indictment against him with respect to what they describe as persistent repeated communications directed to multiple georgia officials and employees between november of '20 and january of 2021. i will continue to go through this. but i'm already seeing recognizable names that weren't included in the indictment, ana, as katie and clark predicted. >> that's an interesting one because i don't recall us talking about purdue in some type of significant involvement. do you think he could be a witness now -- >> it's possible that david perdue could be a witness now. it's also possible that d.a. fani willis determined that the evidence against david perdue was not substantial enough to justify an indictment against him. we'll have to look at the report and what it reveals about this evidence. this is pretty bare bones. in the first few pages, there's a list of people and what

statues the special grand jury recommended they be charged with, but not a fulsome discussion of the evidence against any one of these people. at the end, there's a very long list of folks who they recommend be charged. but, again, just with respect to a vague -- not a vague, but a very short description of the actions that they took that would justify indicting them for particular counts in the georgia code. >> i'm seeing dozens and dozens of names, some of whom are indicted including sidney powell. ken dilanian is with us now. he's our justice and intelligence correspondent. you've been going through this report as well since it dropped moments ago. what are you learning? >> the names that stand out to me of people they recommended charges against but who haven't been indicted would include cleta mitchell, a lawyer who has been the subject of a lot of press coverage but hasn't been charged. mike flynn, the former national security adviser to president

trump who famously was -- pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi and was then pardoned and has become a -- you know, almost iconic figure in terms of efforts to overturn the election and claim fraud in the election. and boris epshteyn, one of donald trump's most senior lawyers who has not been charged. again, as lisa said, this document does not explain the basis for including the names of these people. it doesn't detail the potential charges against them and we have no idea what the decision-making was behind the d.a.'s decision not to bring those charges against the charges who were named but not charged. but it's significant, nonetheless, and it's going to become, you know, something that we're going to chew on and talk about for some time to come. >> katie, i am seeing on page 7, lindsey graham's name is in here. what do you make of that? >> i wanted to kind of quickly

lay a foundation for when your viewers are able to actually look at this report, which it is available publicly. so the way that they've set this up is, they basically say as, for example, page seven where we see lindsey graham, with respect to the efforts to overturn the election focused in georgia, wisconsin, arizona, michigan and district of columbia, they seek indictments of the following persons including votes. they list the names, including lindsey graham which is huge, a united states senator, but they included the votes. you can see who voted yes, no and abstained. there's a no vote for almost all of them but it's interesting that lindsey graham actually got 13 yes, 7 no. kelly lefler, she failed to keep

her seat. we see boris epshteyn, he is known to be the quarterback for the donald trump legal team. his name is recommended for purposes of an indictment and i want to note two names, alex coffman. they were identified as witnesses by the state of georgia in that evidentiary hearing with mark meadows for purposes of his removal. they called alex coffman who is a local georgia attorney who was the attorney who was representing trump in the campaign for the litigation that he brought in the state of georgia. but alex coffman is listed. these are the people who are the boots on the ground in these states. i'll say quickly before i turn it back to you, they list these states and why this is important, guys, is because these states have been conducting their own investigations into election fraud and so what does that mean? that means that there could be

further criminal exposure for donald trump, his contemporaries, his associates, his allies, in some of these states. and so the actual criminal exposure for donald trump may not be done with these four indictments that we've seen so far. i want to emphasize that. >> okay, and you're talking about potentially his -- his involvement in other states and potential state charges that could then later come in individual states where he's been implicated in some of these other players are implicated. the january 6th committee did a lot of work that is intertwined with this particular investigation. as you hear or read these names for yourself, can you speak to that intersection of what we're seeing here and your committee's work? >> yeah, these famous are familiar, right? the people on the panel named some of them. i think cleta mitchell is an example that someone we didn't talk about as much during our public hearings, but she was

brought in by mark meadows, you know, really close after when the election was done and she's the person that reached out to john eastman who we're a little bit more familiar with saying, can you help me with this legal theory about state legislators. michael flynn which is interesting, michael flynn was really involved on the ground on the day before january 6th giving speeches on behalf of stopping the steal. michael flynn pled the fifth to us, to the january 6th select committee. as we're seeing these names, i'm excited about the information that we're going to get. the more information we're going to get from some of these people. as katie just mentioned, this was a sweeping organization trying to overturn the 2020 election in many different states. we know that. we know that fani willis is including the efforts in other states including georgia. so as we continue to find out more informatio than we already have, these famous are familiar, but we're seeing who they talk

to, who they decided was maybe worth an indictment or not. and i'm excited to read more as we kind of brush through this in this hour. >> were you surprised to see lindsey graham's name or david perdue's name in these documents, hannah? >> you know, this was a sweeping list of witnesses that she was able to speak to. fani willis pretty immediately after january 6th started this investigation. so, you know, it even took congress a little bit of time to vote to get the resolution to pass the january 6th select committee. we had to get staffed up. we only had a year of investigative time. the fact that she was able to talk to more witnesses is not surprising to me. i was initially surprised to hear those names. but it will be interesting to see what information they could provide. we know that lindsey graham was close with donald trump. we know that he texted a lot of people, but we'll see, right? david perdue in georgia, maybe

not as surprising to understand what was happening on this day. people forget on january 6th, we have the results of that election in georgia. we forget about it because january 6th was such a big deal. but that election was key for democrats to win the senate. and so a lot of stuff was happening around this time and it's clear that fani willis has been on top of it. >> and let me just read a little bit here for our viewers because as i'm looking at these documents, i'm trying to put all the pieces together. there's a lot of numbers, actually, on the side of some of these documents. and there's this -- on page six under section seven, it says with respect to the national effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election focused on efforts in georgia, arizona, wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania and the district of columbia, the grand jury recommends that the district attorney seek indictments of the following persons including votes, and then it lists a long list of people, including 30-plus names. that's where we see lindsey

graham's list, people like boris epshteyn who i think ken mentioned along with david perdue and along with a lot of the names and people who were, in fact, indicted by that grand jury. so if i'm understanding this right, lisa, these names are people that this special grand jury believes should have been indicted. they're not just people that were called as witnesses. >> specifically, the charge that's being recommended in this section seven against what i count as 39 people here is the state rico charge. the recommendation of the special grand jury was that lynn wood, another former trump attorney, mike flynn, cleta mitchell, boris epshteyn be included among these people who were charged with the overarching conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election in georgia. those are names that are not included in the indictment on that charge or other charges and understanding why will be part of what you, me and all of the

rest of our guests spend a number of the next days and weeks trying to unpack. >> and i'm told, it is 21 people, additionally, who were recommended by the special grand jury to face an indictment who ultimately were not indicted when the da put out the indictment a couple of weeks ago with the 19 names. clark cunningham, i would like to get your reaction to that gap. how do you explain it? >> the special grand jury report as you describe it is way more interesting than i expected it to be. fascinating. absolutely fascinating. let's start with lindsey graham who i certainly did not expect to be recommended for indictment and i believe was told was not a target of the special grand jury. we understand -- i mean, he -- he testified in front of the special grand jury. when he came out, he said he answered all the questions he was asked which suggests he did not take the fifth. the special grand jury listened to him testify under oath and

decided he was a criminal. that's astonishing to me. and david perdue and kelly loeffler, both of them came out and said that the secretary of state should resign with no basis other than donald trump told them to do that. i expect that's a reason they're part of the rico conspiracy. that's fascinating. the three lawyers, coffman, mitchell, and hilbert were on the infamous phone call. >> that's right. >> that's why they were in there. i wonder if any of them are cooperating. that would be really interesting. we may eventually find out. >> could it be that some of these people ultimately could end up indicted? we've seen superseding indictments, for example, in at least one of the federal cases.

>> absolutely. >> and so i guess is that likely? now that we know their names, is this one of those situations -- katie, is it a situation in which their names are out there. clearly the d.a. at this point doesn't feel like this is a risk to let them know that they were recommended to be indicted. so help me understand how you square that. >> yeah, so, we'll square that circle a little bit right now. recall, let's move a couple months back. part of the reason why we did not get a grand jury indictment from fulton county d.a. fani willis was over the deals. some people who were part of the presentation from the d.a. there's an entire list of the fake electors and they were not all indicted. there were only three georgia fake electors that were indicted by this grand jury. there's this issue of immunity, there's this issue of cooperation to clark's point.

alex coffman did not testify, but curt hillbert did receive. i don't know if it was pursuant to a subpoena. but there's a level of cooperation that we're not totally privy to. the grand jury took evidence, heard evidence, and made a decision. if i'm fani willis, i'm not going to supplant that discretion and try to pursue more, frankly, i would let it be where it is. you have 19 co-defendants that are facing a number of felony charges. i think in and of that, you trust that the grand jury in its capacity took the evidence and returned a true bill on what they thought and who they thought was appropriate for charges. so i would -- i would not expect to see in any capacity a superseding indictment at this time. i think what you have is what you have. and i think this is what fani willis is going to move forward with. and i think the special grand jury report is illustrative of exactly how georgia works and

how different it works with the special grand jury sitting in its capacity. remember, donald trump tried his damnedest for us not to see this report. there's a good reason why. these are all of his associates. these are the people who helped him in every capacity on a state and national level to subvert the american democracy and the votes that got joe biden into office. because of that, i think that's the reason why fani willis is going to say, i made my presentation, i'm just going to let it be. >> i know we are working behind the scenes to get reaction now from this long list of people, from their representatives who are now on this 21 additional person list who aren't indicted but were recommended to be indicted by the special grand jury. ken dilanian, are we getting any reaction yet? what else can you tell us about what you may be learning as to why there is such a big gap of

who was indicted and who wasn't? >> i just checked my phone to see if we've gotten any updates, i'm not seeing anything. just so our viewers understand, they're seeing a list of people that a special grand jury recommended being charged criminally and they know that the da decided not to charge those people. the issue that some of them may be cooperating as one of your guests mentioned is a possibly reason. another reason is, those people may have had substantial defenses that d.a. fani willis take a look at and said at the end of the day, a criminal charge is not warranted. senator lindsey graham has said that all of the efforts taken was in his capacity as a u.s. senator, making calls and members of congress have a pretty strong presumption of immunity in acting as

legislators. that has extended to other areas. whether you believe it or not, it may have been an issue that fani willis take a look at and said, well, we may not be able to overcome this defense. for example, attorney cleta mitchell may have argued that she was acting as an attorney in the action that is she took and there's a difference in conduct. they're taking a look at actions people took, phone calls, did they cross a certain line. all of these are the kinds of kale calculations that prosecutors would have made. we're not going to get the answers to this, but it's all secret. deliberations are secret. it may be sometime until we get fidelity on exactly why these people were not charged. >> lisa, where is that line, right? we did see a number of lawyers get indicted, rudy giuliani,

eastman, chesebro and you have others who weren't indicted. when an argument from the people who were indicted, i was acting in my duties as a lawyer, that's the argument they're trying to make but obviously clearly fani willis thought their argument didn't stand up. >> there are a number of instances in which the lawyers who are a part of the indictment went far and beyond what katie, clark, ken or i would consider the normal practice of law. in particular when i think about rudy giuliani and jenna ellis, for example, they went on road shows, they held special hearings where they made a number of representations about alleged facts having to do with election fraud. they talked about dead voters, ineligible voters, voting machine fraud, all unsubstantiated allegations when those people said to different audiences were unsubstantiated. they were not acting as lawyers

in capacity with a particular litigation or even as an advocate for the campaign when they out and out lied to members of state legislators about what happened in the 2020 election. >> but cleta mitchell was on that phone call with raffensperger, right? >> to ken's point, we don't know why cleta mitchell wasn't charged. and i want to raise a point that i think is salient. cleta mitchell has a number of communications with john eastman and his role here. that could have been particularly important to fani willis and her team. cleta mitchell is the reason, for example, john eastman even got involved in investigating whether or not mike pence would have the power to say no to the legitimately chosen electors. she asked him to opine on that very early on in the process. curt hillletter and alex

coffman, they were two members of the team and said, hey, i have concerns about the president signing this complaint because it contends that things we now know not to be true were in fact true. so their relation to john eastman, their intersection with him and others may have made them particularly attractive targets were cooperation agreements. it's very plausible to me that they could have been approached given what else they knew beyond the subject matter that this special grand jury reports says they could very charged. >> katie? >> i want to quickly mention a couple of things. one, the special grand jurors said in this report, we're not lawyers. what we did was, we had these d.a.s come and they said these are the statutes that are relevant and what the jurors did, they plugged and played. they took the evidence, they listened to the witnesses testify and this is their recommendation. i want to make sure this is clear. this is not a release from the d.a.'s office. this is not from fani willis. this is from the special grand

jurors themselves. they're civilians that were brought to sit in service and do their public service by doing this. and so i want to make sure in terms of the legal connections we're trying to draw between the statutes that are cite asked the names that are cited in here, may not necessarily, quote, make the legal sense that we think as lawyers or others it would make. but it made sense to these particular jurors. we know that the d.a.'s office has said they have 150 witnesses for their case. these are witnesses. you're looking at a preliminary witness list for the d.a.'s office. we haven't seen the discovery exhibits that have been turned over that includes the names of the witnesses and the evidence that they have. but i can anticipate seeing a lot of the names being released by fani willis for purposes of proving their case. the huge list of names that starts on page seven and it's a list of 39 names or so -- by the way, the current lieutenant governor of georgia, his name is on this too, by the way, the guy

who is sitting in the state capitol right now. but that particular section seven with all those names, that's the rico charge. and so these jurors said to themselves based upon the evidence they heard, these 39 people, they violated the state rico statute in georgia and we recommend to fani willis that she indict them. this is just their nonlegal recommendations. >> just so people understand the list that we're talking about, this is literally what we're looking at. it is the name and numbers on each side. this is one whole page. this is page seven and it carries over into page eight. and so you mentioned these could be witnesses. these could be potential cooperators. that stands out to me because even though it doesn't, you know, say a whole lot about -- we don't know anything about exactly why they were not charged ultimately. this has got to send a message to those who were charged, no?

>> well, there are two points if you're asking me, i would like to make. one is to follow up on what katie is seeing. it's a combination of democracy and the rule of law in action. this is a cross-section of residents of fulton county selected randomly who worked hard and came up with these inclusions. the idea that this is a personal witch-hunt by fani willis and rebutted to a significant degree by seeing this report which is citizens like you and me working hard to try and figure out things. the other thing is, i do want to suggest that there may be a reason we could see some additional indictments perhaps of these people and that is if some of the current 19 defendants cooperate. and i think that's going to happen. i think some of them are going to plead guilty and cooperate. they may fill in the missing piece that is would allow fani willis to decide that some of these should be indicted. >> and i'm reading, the majority of them agree that perjury may

have been committed by a number of witnesses before they recommend that the district attorney seek appropriate indictments for the crimes where the elements are compelling. i don't recall seeing any charges for perjury. do you think that's outstanding. >> robert -- >> say it again, clark, for us. >> there is a percentage charge again an attorney robert shilley. >> thank you for pointing that out. >> it says one or more witnesses. when we saw the initial version of this grand jury report that was redacted to high heaven as katie mentioned earlier, one of the things people like us were looking for was would they give more detail about who potentially had perjured themselves, this does not.

whether or not the special purpose grand jury was thinking about others who may have perjured themselves and whether or not the district attorney and her team used that as leverage to cut some of the cooperation deals we believe could have been in the works is something we don't know. but certainly is a possibility. and i want to mention a couple of other things. one of the people who is on our list of the 21 additional people against whom charges were recommended and not brought is bert jones who is the current lieutenant governor. he's a person that fani willis is not eligible to further investigate or prosecute. why? because she attended a fund-raising for his political opponent and was found to be disqualified from further proceeding against him. my understanding is that to the extent that charges are justified against bert jones, they will have to be brought by another prosecutor in the state. while i agree we're not going to see a superseding indictment here, i think bert jones is the single person for whom there's a

question mark in my head about whether he can face some further criminal exposure. >> can you speak to that process there in georgia, clark. if there were to be accountability, if there is potentially a crime committed by the lieutenant governor, but because the current d.a.'s hands are tied there, what's the process for accountability, then? >> the director of the prosecuting attorney has already asked to see the special grand jury report. it's up to him to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate whether bert jones should be prosecuted. he was waiting to see this report. and the fact that jones is named in the report even though the d.a. was prohibited from prosecuting him, i think certainly increases the probability that there will be an investigation of bert jones. >> and i'm told garrett haake is standing by and is working to

get reaction from members of capitol hill for us. what are you hearing? >> it's interesting. i'm looking through this with a particular focus on the three republican senators, three at the time who were recommended to be charged in this case, against whom charges were not ultimately filed, lindsey graham, kelly loeffler, and david perdue. purdue and loeffler would lose in the georgia runoff races that gave democrats control of the senate. it was the pivotal moment of 2021 up to january 6th, right, the elections that became the senate majority. it's interesting to note that of all the votes against all of these defendants and nondefendants, there is significant division among the special grand jurors about charging graham, loeffler and perdue.

a footnote saying one of the jurors decided seeking indictments because this conduct was political, they felt, and didn't rise to the level of criminal. that dovetails almost completely with the argument that donald trump is going to make in this case. that his conduct is purely political and doesn't rise to the level of criminality. at least some of these special purpose grand jurors agreed with him. the senate headed home so it's going to take us a bit of time to track down these folks. but graham in particular has been open. i remember interviewing him in january of 2021 about this saying, why would a senator from south carolina have such interest in the actions of, you know, the -- your neighboring state? and he was a believer at the time in the possibility of some kind of elector malfeasance and he since said there hasn't been any. the cases of perdue and loeffler. perdue ran against brian kemp as a donald trump-backed candidate.

he got smoked by kemp in that primary. he ran of the belief that the 2020 election got stolen. kemp has won on defending the elections in georgia and whether or not loeffler or perdue who are still in the trump orbit but out of elected politics right now still believe this or not, may be relevant here. we'll see if they have anything to say about the decision not to prosecute them despite the grand jury's recommendation. >> do you think lindsey graham is concerned about his continued potential legal exposure. >> i doubt it. i mean, graham would have testified back in 2022 when this grand jury was speaking. he's been very open in his comments publicly about these cases and he's not someone who, you know, continued to hold up the idea that the election was somehow stolen. that's not the line that he uses

now. he talks about joe biden being the legitimate president. i think he has moved past this in his political stance. where he feels me other exposure, he's not acting like it in public. >> katie, i know you have some thoughts about that. >> yeah, we've been highlighting the fact that people like lindsey graham, for example, didn't make the final cut when it came to getting indicted in this case. i want to emphasize from the special grand jury report the people that did. clark mentioned about how this is the functioning in realtime of american democracy at work. and really, i want to emphasize the thing about d.a. fani willis in this indictment is that she recognized they were victims of these crimes. and sometimes you look at crimes, and i want to focus on ruby freeman. we highlighted the fact that the workers were targeted in a horrific way and the level of harassment and intimidation that they sustained actually gave rise to charges in a grand jury

indictment. i want to emphasize there are people that the special grand jury looked at and said, you know what, they should be charged because of what they did. what they did was wrong and we saw that happen. we actually saw that happen with the actual grand jury indictment that was released a few months later. those particular defendants that have made it to that final cut of the indictment, they were noted in the special grand jury report as having culpability criminally and it's interesting to see where these two -- where the report and the indictment, where they meet. where they actually match. again, we spend time talking about the people who didn't get indicted and aren't they relieved at this point. but i think it's important to emphasize to people that did get indicted and rightfully so. and the very last point, we still don't know the name of the special grand jurors. there was a big deal when the grand jury indictment came out a few weeks ago because the names of the grand jurors pursuant to georgia law, they were listed

publicly. you could see the people that returned the true bill. but the names remain redacted and that's important because the law allows for that level of confidentiality and secrecy to exist for purposes of that special grand jury. >> and, lisa, i know you had a few thoughts about lindsey graham, boris epshteyn, all being on the list and ultimately not being indicted. >> yeah, i do. boris epshteyn in particular strikes me as maybe the luckiest guy in america and here's why. in the federal indictment, there are six unindicted co-conspirators, five of whom have been definitively identified. the sixth is someone who nbc news has not identitied in particular. but the sixth is boris epshteyn. we see him here as someone worthy of indictment. the fact that boris epshteyn has escaped indictment not only once in an election interference case, but apparently twice, is

really interesting to me, particularly given that we understand that he spoke with investigators affiliated with the department of justice and the special counsel's team. i cannot recall independently whether he has testified before the special purpose grand jury of georgia. i know katie and clark can check me on that. but boris epshteyn has got to be thanking his lucky stars this morning, how long that luck will run for him, remains to be seen. >> jack smith has brought superseding indictments in the classified documents case and the grand jury in d.c. actually was meeting again this week with the special counsel. so who knows if they are working on superseding indictments in the other case that is before the special counsel, right? >> or independent indictments that are separate and apart from the pending indictment against donald trump stemming from other facets of the investigation, some of the fund-raising issues that we understand that jack smith is looking into. but i want to turn back to

lindsey graham. irrespective of whether he faces any criminal exposure, he's the reason that this georgia investigation started in the first place. you will recall that in november of 2020, brad raffensperger said he got a strange call from lindsey graham asking if he could discard mail-in ballots from counties that had higher rates of unmatched signatures. he had a number of questions about how it worked and what power he had to throw out ballots. and that was the genesis, along with that raffensperger call in january of 2021 from trump and mark meadows and some of those other attorneys for fani willis' investigation in the first instance. so whether or not lindsey graham ultimately is held responsible, he's what got us to this point indirectly. >> as we are getting this report, one of the indicted

co-conspirators, kenneth chesebro just filed in this case. his lawyers say they believe this should be dismissed for two reasons. the alleged pattern does not fall within the gamut of the rico statute because there's no gain or physical injury as required by law. and second, even if there were such allegations, count one, still must be dismissed because the indictment fails to allege a nexus between the enterprise and the racketeering activity as required to survive. so there's some words there that are very legalese. clark, your reaction and response to that. do you think it's strong? >> well, i haven't read it yet. chesebro's lawyers have been very active in trying to file

motions and get out of this case. i understand i think what they're arguing about a motive, but i don't think that that's actually the status where georgia law is now. there have been plenty of people successfully prosecuted under rico, for example, county who ws convicted of conspireing to murder his political opponent. so, and, you know, i don't think that's going to stand up. but, you know, obviously i'll wait and read it and read it with care. >> and, katie, i know you have to run here in a moment because got to get in position to be with jose at the top of his show. so do you have any final thoughts before we let you go? >> yeah, really quickly, ana, the reason you're seeing the filing of this motion from kenneth chesebro now is because he's going to trial. he's got a trial date of october 23rd with sidney powell as you'll recall, just a few days ago, in court, scott mcafee said speedy demands filed for kenneth chesebro and sidney powell, i'll

try you together, you'll go to trial on october 23rd, we're pending a ruling from the court on whether he'll make all 19 go to trial on october 23rd. to clark's point, the state statute for rico is just such a powerful tool. it casts a wide enough net under the law in georgia to allow to bring in people that are doing things in different states at different times, but because they're working toward a common enterprise, because they're part of this big conspiracy, as the state indicated in the hearing two days ago to the judge, the evidence against one is the evidence against all and i think the fact that he as in kenneth chesebro is trying to say, you can't link me to this conspiracy because of my independent acts, he tried that the other day, it was for purposes of trying to separate himself from sidney powell, but this was a predictable move and predictably i think it will be dismissed. i mean, it will be denied. >> denied. he won't get it dismissed, that rico charge they want thrown out. we'll see a lot more motions,

like you said, we'll see a lot from chesebro's team specifically, a lot from meadows' team trying to get this out to federal court, not state court. we have seen that from jeffrey clark's team. trying to keep everybody, you know, nimble and understanding these moves that are going to continue to probably take place for the foreseeable future until there is an actual trial and even during the trial we'll see. 19 co-defendants and we're told this trial could last months with 150 witnesses and so forth. katie, thank you. everybody else, stay with me. we're still going to continue to discuss this report. i do wonder, lisa, do you think this report has any impact now on the trial and the timeline of the trial? will it have an impact in any way? >> i don't think it has an impact on the timeline for the trial. i think to katie's point earlier, chesebro and powell have a trial date, scott mcafee, the judge here, indicated that october 23rd trial date is firm. he has also signaled that he is

unlikely, though he's allowing further briefing, to try the 17 other co-defendants on that time frame. what i do think is likely is not so much that this has a direct impact, but what it reveals has an impact. that as katie said earlier, as you're reading this, looking at people against whom indictments were recommended, you're seeing the witness list in formation. the fact that there were 75 witnesses before the special purpose grand jury and now the d.a.'s office is saying there will be 150 witnesses at trial, the opposite is typically true. you usually will see many more witnesses during the investigative stage than you will see actually materialize to come to trial. why is that? well, here, one of the reasons could be that some of the people who were thought of as targets have now become witnesses. raising the total number of witnesses from beyond that 75 to bridge that gap between 75 and

150. >> and, clark, you brought up the fact that this special grand jury is made up of everyday moms, dads, sisters, brothers, workers there in georgia. and so as you think about the trial moving forward and the grand jury, a separate group of people who are also everyday citizens doing their duty here in service of the public, when you think about the jury pool there, do you think it will be difficult at all to get a fair and impartial jury? we know that's something that trump likes to bring up often. >> well, let's think about the composition of the special grand jury. given the percentage of people in fulton county who did vote for donald trump, i think it is almost certain that some of the people on the special grand jury would have voted for donald trump for president and yet that special grand jury went out of its way to reach a unanimous decision that in their -- after

all the evidence they looked at, that there was no evidence of sufficient fraud to have changed the outcome of the election. so this was a diverse group of people who probably spanned the partisan gap who came to that conclusion. i think that's a very encouraging thing. >> vaughn hillyard is joining us now, he's in rapid city, south dakota, where trump will be landing here shortly for an event. vaughn, any early reaction there to this new report? what's the latest from team trump? >> right. we're waiting to hear from donald trump himself on his social media account. he will be here in south dakota for what amounts to essentially a rally. he will be joined alongside the south dakota gop who is actually hosting this event in rapid city, south dakota, as well as with governor here of south dakota kristi noem. for donald trump, this just speaks to the level of incoming. of course, the reveal of the special grand jury's report

suggests there are other individuals who could have potentially faced indictments. but you're also looking at the fact here that in colorado, his attorneys in colorado have now filed a petition here this morning to move the challenge particularly around the disqualification clause, section 3 of the 14th amendment, which was filed by multiple voters in colorado to have donald trump's name removed from the ballot for having engaged in insurrection or rebellion. that is a lawsuit that was filed this week here against the secretary of state to have his name removed. he now has attorneys in colorado, we're finding out, who have filed a petition to have that case removed from the state court in colorado to a federal court, which suggests that the request here is that this is an expedited case, this could be happening rather quickly. there is one secretary of state who even suggested to me this could potentially even go to the

u.s. supreme court if multiple states were to have lawsuits filed to have his name removed here. for donald trump, the number of attorneys he has involved in these multiple cases, and the amount of income is running perp perpendicular. >> thank you so much, vaughn hillyard for that live report from south dakota. my thanks to all my guests for being here with us today. clark cunningham, lisa rubin, katie phang, and the list goes on. i don't want to forget anybody. hannah muldovon. thank you for helping us out. see you back here on monday. hope everybody has a great weekend. until then, i'm ana cabrera reporting from new york. jose diaz-balart picks up the coverage right after a quick break. stay right there. coverage right after a quick break. stay right there to reel in the fun and savor every bite. to help you get ready your aspen dental team is celebrating

25 years of affordable care with an epic summer of smiles event. don't miss enjoying a moment, with our onsite labs to help you, fast, and 20% off your denture care. so, whether you need a new look or a quick fix, you can celebrate with a smile all season— always at aspen dental. book today. ( ♪ ♪ ) start your day with nature made. the #1 pharmacist recommended vitamin and supplement brand. businesses need 5g solutions today. that's why they choose t-mobile for business. mlb partners with t-mobile to not only enhance the fan experience, but to advance how the game is played. aaa relies on t-mobile's network to stay connected nationwide, so they can help get their members back on the road. and we're helping pano ai innovate, to stop the spread of wildfires.

now's the time to see what america's largest 5g network can do for your business. with powerful, easy-to-use tools, power e*trade makes complex trading easier. react to fast-moving markets with dynamic charting and a futures ladder that lets you place, flatten, or reverse orders so you won't miss an opportunity. e*trade from morgan stanley.

good morning. 11:00 a.m.